


Multiverse Criminology

by jessalae



Category: Community, Fringe
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessalae/pseuds/jessalae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just another regular day in Fringe Division, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Multiverse Criminology

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theleaveswant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/gifts).



“Let me get this straight,” Olivia says, leaning forward over the plain metal table. “You breached the wall between your universe and ours with a modified PlayStation 3 controller and a child’s red wagon full of car batteries?”

The two men on the other side of the table stare at her, unblinking. “Yep,” says the taller one.

“And you did this with the explicit intention of killing your alternate selves, and… what? Taking their places in our universe?”

“Not exactly,” the taller man says. “While that would be one possibility, I was really hoping that killing the versions of ourselves in one of the other timelines would somehow snap the universe back into alignment and make our timeline never have existed. After all,” he continues, shooting a glance at his accomplice, “in our version of events, something clearly went terribly wrong. Housewarmings are supposed to be heartwarming celebrations of friendship, especially housewarmings for an apartment as cool as ours.”

“Damn straight,” his accomplice says, the words buzzing out through the small white box embedded in his throat. The two men do that strange high-five-chest-slap thing again, only slightly encumbered by the handcuffs around their wrists. 

Olivia leans back in her chair and looks over at the two-way mirror on the wall of the interrogation room. She can’t see Lincoln watching from the other side, but thinks she can feel his incredulous stare searing into the back of her head. “You realize that everything you just told me about is highly illegal?”

“We didn’t until you universe-protecting SWAT team people showed up to arrest us,” the shorter man says, scratching under the edge of his felt goatee. “We weren’t really expecting to get caught quite so fast. Or at all.”

“Still,” the taller one says, “This has been pretty cool anyway. I’m satisfied with our progress.” His companion nods happily at him. “I think if you just let us wander around your universe for a while, we can go home after that.”

Olivia resists the urge to rub her forehead, where a headache the size of Manhattan is beginning to form. “Okay, let’s go back and start from the beginning. Who are you?”

***

The day had started out simply enough — a minor breach in an Abercrombie & Fitch store in SoHo, easily dealt with by temporarily evacuating the dressing rooms, and a false alarm in the basement of a private high school, someone’s science fair project on radiation gone oh-so-slightly wrong. Pretty standard for the New York Fringe office, especially now that the other side had stopped screwing with the boundaries of time and space on quite such a regular basis. The bridge helped a lot with that — now when the other side’s agents wanted to come and shove their collective nose into this universe’s business, they had a buttload of paperwork to get through before they could do it. It wasn’t nearly enough to make up for the damage they’d caused in the past, but it did give Olivia a smug feeling of schadenfreude to think of her uptight blonde counterpart sitting at a desk till all hours, struggling to satisfy the finest of fine print.

Anyway, everything had been normal until Astrid called her over to the central workstation sometime around eleven.

“Our sensors have detected an anomalous energy signature in Ridgewood,” she had said, nodding to a flashing dot on the map in the corner of her display. “There are severely elevated levels of delta radiation in the gymnasium of the local YMCA.”

“Delta radiation?” Olivia had asked, waving Lincoln and Charlie over. “Hey, guys, we might have a problem.”

“Although delta radiation is not the variety normally present at a breach site, it has remarkably similar properties to the ambient radiation we see at most severe breaches,” Astrid had explained, her fingers flying across her workstation, opening and checking file after file. “It has been theoretically proposed that it could be used to create a breach if large quantities were used in a focused manner.” Spreadsheets and graphs appeared and disappeared on Astrid’s display, moving so rapidly that Olivia couldn’t keep track. Suddenly Astrid closed all the documents, bringing the map up to fill her whole display. “The amount of radiation at the Ridgewood site, in conjunction with the relatively small area of dispersal, leads me to believe that a breach may be forming at that site currently.”

“ _Create_ a breach?” Lincoln asked. “This wouldn’t happen naturally as part of the ongoing deterioration?”

Astrid shook her head briskly. “A spontaneous delta breach has never been known to occur, nor is it scientifically feasible. If the sensors are correct, which they are in ninety-seven-point-three percent of cases, this event is being caused by a willful perpetrator.”

“Let’s go, people,” Charlie barked out to the rest of the office. “Get your gear and get in transport.” A dozen agents leapt from their desks to follow his instructions.

“Monitor the situation and keep in touch,” Lincoln told Astrid, and stalked off towards the equipment locker.

Olivia lingered for a moment. “Is this an attack from the other side, then?”

“Unlikely,” Astrid said. “I have scanned their major academic databases and found no published research on delta radiation. It can be inferred that their scientists have not yet discovered it, or that any research that has been conducted has had inconclusive results. It is highly improbable that a universe whose top research institutions are either unaware of or incapable of producing delta radiation would be able to mount an attack of this kind.”

“So where’s it coming from?” Olivia asked.

“That cannot be determined using the information currently available. If new data presents itself I will inform Agent Lee immediately.”

Olivia nodded sharply and ran out towards the transport. Just another regular day in Fringe Division, right?

***

“ _Six_ timelines?”

“Seven, technically,” the taller one — Mr. Abed Nadir, according to the notes Olivia had just taken — said. “When I said there were six timelines, I hadn’t yet realized that Jeff’s scheme meant he would never have to go get the pizza.”

“So there are seven other universes out there because of your friend?”

Mr. Nadir cocks his head to the side. “There are billions of universes. Any choice you make can create a new one. Jeff happened to create seven at our housewarming, but you yourself have probably created several over the course of today.”

“That’s an interesting philosophical point, sure, but here’s the real question: are we likely to be invaded by versions of you two from any of those other universes?” Lincoln asks. He had joined them about an hour ago, apparently deciding that this interrogation was just too good to watch from the sidelines. Olivia’s sure she can handle these two on her own, but she suspects she’ll be glad of his company — and the tapes from the security cameras — in the future, when she needs to prove to herself that this wasn’t all just some really weird dream.

“Don’t think so,” Mr. Nadir says. “I don’t think I’d be motivated to leave my universe unless things were really bad there, and even then, there are probably some universes where I wouldn’t have figured out how to do it.”

“We almost didn’t figure it out this time,” Mr. Barnes adds. “Abed messed up the programming on the controller and the batteries caught fire.”

“Troy put it out with his Jamba Juice,” Mr. Nadir continues. “But we had to replace the batteries, and we had already robbed all the auto shops between Greendale and Denver. We had to keep moving east to avoid the police. By the time we finally got it right, we were already in New York.”

“You _stole_ the batteries?”

“Duh,” Mr. Barnes says. “We’re _evil_.”

***

Olivia steps out of the interrogation room and closes the door carefully, then slumps back against it.

“What the hell is going on in there?” Charlie asks her.

“When did you start listening?”

“I was working that breach in Queens until half an hour ago.”

“So you’ve missed a lot of context.”

“I guess so. None of what they’re saying makes any sense.”

“Yeah, can’t say the context really helps with that.” Olivia shoves herself away from the door and steps over to the vending machine to get the bottle of water she promised Mr. Nadir. “I mean, they obviously believe what they’re saying, and I guess it’s possible — but if so, their logic is not of this world.”

Charlie shrugs, his hands in his pockets. “Neither are they.”

Olivia frowns. “Hey, do we know what their alternates in this universe are actually like?”

***

“I play pro football!” Mr. Barnes squeals. (Well, sort of — his artificial voice box doesn’t have a huge range in pitch, but the gleeful facial expression and slight bounce in his seat suggest he would be squealing if he could.) “Wide receiver for the Broncos! I kick _ass_ in this universe.”

“So you can see, this is obviously not the universe you were looking for, and your being here—“ Olivia starts.

Mr. Nadir glances over at Mr. Barnes’s sheet. “You’re not in college?”

Mr. Barnes’s shakes his head. “No. I didn’t do that keg flip, went to Colorado State for two years on a football scholarship, then left to play for the pros.” His face falls suddenly. “Wait. If I never went to Greendale, does that mean in this universe we don’t know each other?”

“Not unless you like falafel,” Mr. Nadir says, sliding his profile sheet sideways so Mr. Barnes can read it. “In this universe, I dropped out after my first semester, and my dad’s grooming me to run the family business.”

Mr. Barnes’s face falls even further. “I don’t really like falafel. I usually go for pizza instead.”

“So we probably don’t know each other.”

Mr. Barnes’s bottom lip begins to quiver. “This universe _sucks_.”

“Well, I for one am kind of fond of it,” Lincoln says, planting both hands on the table. “Given that, I’d rather people from other universes didn’t come waltzing in whenever they pleased and destabilizing its boundaries.”

“The destabilization should be minor if you send us back,” Mr. Nadir says. “Restore the inter-universe equilibrium.”

“We promise we’ll stay there.”

“There’s no point in killing our alternate selves here if they don’t even know each other.”

“Besides, it says here the Broncos are four and oh this season thanks to this universe’s me.”

“I’d really prefer to continue my career as a filmmaker rather than a falafel proprietor.”

“We can talk to our boss,” Olivia says loudly over their steady stream of chatter. “If you’re willing to leave and never come back, he might be willing to drop the charges and let you go.”

“Cool,” they say simultaneously, and do that hand thing again.

***

The YMCA in Ridgewood is deserted at this hour of the night. The tech team sets up a perimeter of delta emitters and wheels in an enormous battery. Mr. Nadir is explaining to one technician how to pinpoint their universe, using five-syllable words that Olivia is sure he must have made up.

“I just want to reiterate how unusual I find this whole situation,” says Colonel Broyles in a hushed tone.

“You and me both, sir,” Olivia says. “But it’s clear they really meant no large-scale harm, and they seem sincere in their promises not to come back. The important thing is minimizing the disruption.”

“Hm. Well, if they change their minds, next time we won’t be so lenient.”

“Of course, sir.”

The apparatus is ready, and the men step inside.

“Hey, wait,” Olivia says as the technicians begin warming up the battery. “Aren’t you wanted by the police in your universe?”

“Oh.” Mr. Nadir says. “Right.” The men look at each other briefly, then pull off their fake goatees and toss them out of the circle.

“Can’t arrest us if we don’t look like us!” Mr. Barnes says cheerfully. 

“And you’ve conveniently confiscated all our equipment, thus eliminating the remaining evidence,” Mr. Nadir adds. “We’ll probably get off with a warning.”

Olivia is speechless. The battery whirs, and the air around them starts to shimmer.

The technicians crank up the power, and the shimmering increases, obscuring some of the details of the men’s faces. “Well, so long, other universe,” Mr. Barnes says. “It’s been nice getting to know you.”

“We won’t be back,” Mr. Nadir says in a thick Austrian accent.

The air is now shimmering so hard the men can barely be seen. A mechanical “Go Broncos!” drifts out of the wavering mass, and then there’s a popping feeling and they’re gone. The whine of the battery diminishes, and the heat of the radiation dissipates.

Olivia sighs and turns on her heel, heading back to her car.

 

 

 

(“So. Do you have much experience using delta radiation?” Astrid asks. Olivia is upstairs talking to Broyles, and Lincoln has escorted Mr. Barnes to the bathroom. Normally she wouldn’t talk to suspects under interrogation, but curiosity seems to have gotten the better of her. 

“Not much,” Mr. Nadir replies. “There was a lot of trial and error on our way across the country. The first time I got the system to work, we ended up in some kind of swamp universe. Not ideal.”

“I would be interested in learning more about your system.”

“Colonel Broyles says we have to leave our controller here to help keep us from coming back,” Mr. Nadir offers. “I’m sure you could ask for permission to study it.”

“Good. And the car batteries? Standard lead-acid SLIs?”

“Yep. We tried a few different brands, but there wasn’t much variation in our results based on that. Just make sure they’re as new as possible — we always did better with fresh ones.”

“Cool,” says Astrid. “Cool cool cool.”)


End file.
